Spent most of the day tearing down and draining an old loop so only a few pics for today.....

Both the sabertooth and the TX will be going into this build, and a thread earlier today got me thinking about how much this "couple" has changed homes over the last few years. As it stands, they've been installed in a Cosmos S, a Lian Li Pitstop T60, and now they're moving into a Bitfenix Ghost. For the Sabertooth, it's one extra as it spent a little bit of time in my TT lvl 10 GT with a different PSU. :)

I'll be going with 3/8" barbs / tubing this time around but have enough compression / angled fittings this time around that I'll be able to keep the loop tight (unlike my initial GT build). An EK-Supreme HF (nickel) will be going back on, and a Thermochill PA 120.2 that 3.0Charlie was kind enough to install thread adapters into will be going up top and the Swiftech QP might make an appearance just to get some clearance pics if the larger PA is a tight fit.

Folks who've sold me WC gear will probably recognise some of those barbs... Pretty sure the 90deg and the full 45deg (not the adapters) came with kit I purchased here. :)

Lot's of pics today, but not as much progress as I'd like, as well as a roadbump.

Pretty standard fare internally. Side facing 3.5 and 2.5 bays with plastic quick release/tool less trays. The side of the 2.5 bay can be removed to allow for a silly long card to be installed, but there's already 13" worth of clearance so I can't imagine anybody needing to remove it unless they just wanted to clean up the interior.

Quick shot of the "sound dampening" material they've put on both case sides. I'm not sure if it'll actually dampen any sound, but as a possibly unintended effect, it does give the case sides a feeling of substance.

In the last pic, I was going to complain about the PCI blanking plates not being punched out (like you see on sub $50 cases) as they aren't held in place with thumbscrews, but closer examination shows that they are proper individual covers which have somehow been wedged into place.

Since this is a mid budget case the included accessories are pretty much what I expected. Some folks might complain about the fact that they have to install their own rubber grommets, but in all honesty, why not if it save us a few bucks. Same goes for not taking the time to insert the individual HDD/SDD trays... any manufacturing process that requires human hands is labour intensive and adds quite a bit to costs. Not only am I happy to save a few bucks by doing these kinds of things, I also personally think it adds to the build process if I'm doing little things like that. (Kinda like making plastic models.... ;) ). System builders will of course disagree strongly with anything that adds time to their builds.

The trays are kinda cheap, but they work. Strangely, the pins are fixed, and the trays must be "flexed" in order to fit them over the HDD/SDD. Not a big deal for somebody who's going to put a single drive in for the life of the case, but I'm not a big fan of "Flexing" plastic over and over for multiple HDDs in the same tray.

In keeping with the theme of using as many HWC purchased items as possible I've changed the block that'll be going into this build. In all honesty, I'm not sure what kind of block it is, but the hold-down plate is apparently a braineater manufactured product so it's gotta go in. :)

The block is a little bit rough around the edges, but there's no window on the case so that's not a big deal.

The WB initially mounted directly to the MB with screws / springs, but had no backplate. I wanted the extra support that a backplate would provide, and was pleased to find that the stock backplate was threaded straight through w/ a 6-32 thread (unfortunately the original machine screws were too small). The only issue was a lip from the thread insert and fortunately a washer was more than enough to fill in the gap.

Overall I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, especially once I found the brass coloured knurled nuts at my local hardware store. The springs I bought were too long, and they don't call it "spring steel" for nothing thus impossible to cut to size, so I ended up using the original springs.

So now onto the Roadblock.... in what seems to be a theme for me these days, I counted on being able to install just about any 240 rad into this case, but as it stands, there's only room for a slim rad. There is absolutely no room internally for my TC PA120.2, and the space up top is limited to aprox. 3.5 cm depth.

I really wish manufacturers would start providing clearance information when / if they claim that a case is WC compatible.

Since I won't be able to use the PA, I've already ordered a slim XSPC rad from Dazmode.com, but until it arrives I'm not sure if I want the fans up top or the rad up top.

Oh the joys of roadbumps and spending money you didn't need to. I know all about that. :P

How much clearance do you have between the top of the inside of the case and the top of the motherboard? Enough for rad or just fans?

4.5 cm inside to the MB, aprox. 3.5 cm room up top, a little over 2 cm clearance from the top of the motherboard to the bottom of fan/rad, so no push/pull for me on this build either.

I haven't decided for sure yet, but my current thinking (providing access to the barbs works out) is that having the rad on top, and the fans internal drawing air in would make cleaning the dust bunnys out of the rad exceptionally easy.

One major arrival, and mostly built except for the loop which is waiting for a Rad from Dazmode (might be here by the end of the week, if not, then likely monday).

Once again, just about every part of this loop is something I picked up used through HWC. SugarJ jumped at an awesome deal on a Galaxy 680 and then made me an offer I couldn't refuse on his 580 w/ EK block.

Pretty much everything but the loop installed. Front side cable management is easy enough (although you might want to route the CPU power cable through the cut-out before installing the motherboard), but I think I might need to do a little bit of work to the back side. :)

This will be my first WC'd vid card, and in spite of SugarJ's warnings I'm kinda liking the "B" side of the vid card block as a drain port (assuming I don't install any cards below it). It's the lowest part of the loop, and if I put a container underneith it I should be able to open the two lower ports to drain.

In what has to be the the speediest CP express post package ever to arrive on my doorstep, I ordered this rad on the 23'rd from dazmode @ mid-day, and it arrived at my door today (25'th). That was the highlight of the build today and then things went downhill.

First off, because of the spacing of the mounts up top WRT the inlet/outlet there'd be no way to mount the rad up there with the fans pulling from inside the case, that's ok I was expecting that, and wasn't even really sure how well the tubing would run that way anywise, but the real kicker was when I attempted to fit a barb onto it once it was installed....

As you can see, there's a clearance issue with the sata power connection of an ODD installed in the upper bay, and from how far out the ODD is, you can see it's a pretty big clearance issue. It's possible that a thin flush mount angled power adapter might work in there (I'm going to see if I can find one), but without something like that, there's no way to get an ODD in that upper bay.... which brings us to the fact that I'm using a two bay res/pump on a case with only 3 5 1/4 bays, and if I move that res to the upper two bays, I'll have no easy access to the fill port.

Soooo..... for now we're going to go sans ODD. I have a USB external, and I've managed to run the power and data cables up under the rad grill so if I want to use a sata ODD (my USB external is not usb3) it's easy enough to hook it up on the top temporarily.

Once I got done calling engineers every dirty name in the book (and a few I had to look up just to be sure... ;) ) I got back to the business of throwing the loop together. Since I was using 3/8 barbs / tubing and had mucked up the first TT loop by making it wayyyyy too loose, I wanted to go the direct opposite and make this loop as tight as possible. I'm relatively pleased with the results, but there is so little play in it, getting much work on the hardware done might require me to break the loop so I wanted an easy way to drain it, hence the drain tube on one of the bottom ports of the vid card in spite of all the good advice I got to the contrary. :)

No leak testing this evening, there's a lot of older untested hardware in the loop so I want to be able to keep a close eye on it rather than letting it run overnight.